This will mean little perhaps to those who do not know Joe Bageant, but I write it for those who do. Or want to, which makes sense.

Jocotepec, Mexico--Joe lived awhile down the lake. We would visit him of an afternoon, Vi and I, and find him, a bear of a man, bearded mountain Buddha, writing on the porch of his one-room place in Ajijic. Always he wore his old fishing vest, in which I suspect he was born, and sometimes he carried a small laptop in one of its pockets. Usually we adjourned to the living room, which was also the bedroom, dining room, and salon. He would fetch bottles of local red, or make the jalapeño martinis he invented—there was a bit of mad chemist in him—and we would talk for hours of art, music, the news, politics, and people. Especially people. Sometimes he grabbed one of the guitars from the wall and sang blues, at which he was good. I guess growing up dirt poor in West Virginia puts that kind of music in you.

I believe that both Holder and Obama knew.=================================================================

"........now it appears knowledge got as high as an Assistant Attorney General, an appointee. If it got that high, odds are good it would have gotten to the AG. And if it got to him, odds are decent that it got to the White House. I note the official denials are that anyone high up "approved" it. You can of course know of something, decide to let it run its course, and still deny having "approved" it. CYA and all that. "They told me about it, I just assumed they knew what they were doing."

"I have been thinking about this for a long time. Ever since I wrote The Constitutionalist and recognized that most of our liberties had been given over by the Supreme Court to the legislature, I have tried to figure out a way to regain them. At times that has not been understood to be a peaceful means. What power has any government relinquished just because it was right?

Shortly after writing the book the Tea Party began to take shape and build influence. I realized that most of what I thought needed to happen could be done through the Tea Party. But, I have never joined a real Tea Party. I am a member on some of the websites, but I attend no particular meeting. I go to a number of events and have attended meetings of a number of different organizations, often as a speaker. Yet, I have not taken part. The reason is I have never quite believed that they would accomplish the task. They were too timid of conflict and conflict is the only means of securing power that has been taken away.

I am not content to sit by and watch the continued destruction of liberty in this nation. It is time for action. We must, as a people, understand that there is no vote that we will ever be given that will secure liberty. There is no person we can elect that will return liberty to the people. Too many are dependent upon the way things are to go messing around with freedom. We saw in Wisconsin what happens in America when politicians try to do the right thing. They are mobbed and threatened by the moochers and parasites living off the carcass of liberty."

I am here today to talk about multiculturalism. This term has a number of different meanings. I use the term to refer to a specific political ideology. It advocates that all cultures are equal. If they are equal it follows that the state is not allowed to promote any specific cultural values as central and dominant. In other words: multiculturalism holds that the state should not promote a leitkultur, which immigrants have to accept if they want to live in our mist.

It is this ideology of cultural relativism which the German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently referred to when she said that multiculturalism has proved “an absolute failure.”

"Many Americans have heard of the Boston Tea Party of 1773. Far less can tell of the Edenton Tea Party of 1774. I can count a few, but I have some fingers left.

During the Revolution era, Edenton, North Carolina was a hotbed of political debate. After approximately fifty men, dressed like Indians, boarded three ships on December 16, 1773, and dumped tea in the Boston, Massachusetts harbor to protest imposing trade legislation, many North Carolinians approved. In 1774, the North Carolina province passed non-importation resolves to protest British trade regulation. That year at tea parties, a fashionable form of entertainment, polemics and ardent gesturing no doubt heated the rooms and hallways of Edenton. Soon, an unforeseen defense of liberty occurred there."===============================================================

Lincoln and the Republican radicals made no effort after the election of 1860 to preserve the Union; Lincoln was vague and ambiguous at the February, 1861 Peace Congress and spoke his usual homilies without committing himself to peace. If slavery had been their concern, they advanced no practical or peaceful proposals for emancipation. The books of B.F. Grady can be found in reprinted form at www.confederatereprint.com.

General Joseph Lane, of Oregon, replying in the Senate, March 2, 1861, to a speech of Senator Andrew Johnson’s advocating the “execution of the laws,” “protecting the public property”:

“Sir, if there is, as I contend, the right of secession, then, whenever a State exercises that right, this Government has no laws in that State to execute, nor has it any property in such State that can be protected by the power of this Government. In attempting, however, to substitute the smooth phrases ‘executing the laws’ and ‘protecting public property’ for coercion, for civil war, we have an important concession: that is, that this Government dare not go before the people with a plain avowal of its real purposes and their consequences. No sir; the policy is to inveigle the people of the North into civil war, by masking the design in smooth and ambiguous terms.”

(The Case of the South Against the North, Benjamin Franklin Grady, Edwards & Broughton, 1899, pp. 299-300)===============================================================Substituting Smooth and Ambiguous Terms

(My mother had me memorize the short part of his speech below to recite in front of the UDC at the Marshall, Salem during the War, Baptist church in Virginia.)

My friend Dr. Talmage has told you that the typical American has yet to come. Let me tell you that he has already come. [Applause.] Great types like valuable plants are slow to flower and fruit. But from the union of these colonist Puritans and Cavaliers, from the straightening of their purposes and the crossing of their blood, slow perfecting through a century, came he who stands as the first typical American, the first who comprehended within himself all the strength and gentleness, all the majesty and grace of this Republic—Abraham Lincoln. [Loud and continued applause.] He was the sum of Puritan and Cavalier, for in his ardent nature were fused the virtues of both, and in the depths of his great soul the faults of both were lost. [Renewed applause.] He was greater than Puritan, greater than Cavalier, in that he was American [Renewed applause.] and that in his homely form were first gathered the vast and thrilling forces of his ideal government—charging it with such tremendous meaning and so elevating it above human suffering that martyrdom, though infamously aimed, came as a fitting crown to a life consecrated from the cradle to human liberty. [Loud and prolonged cheering.] Let us, each cherishing the traditions and honoring his fathers, build with reverent hands to the type of this simple but sublime life, in which all types are honored; and in our common glory as Americans there will be plenty and to spare for your forefathers and for mine. [Renewed cheering.]

In speaking to the toast with which you have honored me, I accept the term, "The New South," as in no sense disparaging to the Old. Dear to me, sir, is the home of my childhood and the traditions of my people. I would not, if I could, dim the glory they won in peace and war, or by word or deed take aught from the splendor and grace of their civilization—never equaled and, perhaps, never to be equaled in its chivalric strength and grace. There is a New South, not through protest against the Old, but because of new conditions, new adjustments and, if you please, new ideas and aspirations. It is to this that I address myself, and to the consideration of which I hasten lest it become the Old South before I get to it. Age does not endow all things with strength and virtue, nor are all new things to be despised. The shoemaker who put over his door "John Smith's shop. Founded in 1760," was more than matched by his young rival across the street who hung out this sign: "Bill Jones. Established 1886. No old stock kept in this shop."

Dr. Talmage has drawn for you, with a master's hand, the picture of your returning armies, He has told you how, in the pomp and circumstance of war, they came back to you, marching with proud and victorious tread, reading their glory in a nation's eyes! Will you bear with me while I tell you of another army that sought its home at the close of the late war—an army that marched home in defeat and not in victory—in pathos and not in splendor, but in glory that equaled yours, and to hearts as loving as ever welcomed heroes home. Let me picture to you the footsore Confederate soldier, as, buttoning up in his faded gray jacket the parole which was to bear testimony to his children of his fidelity and faith, he turned his face southward from Appomattox in April, 1865. Think of him as ragged, half-starved, heavy-hearted, enfeebled by want and wounds; having fought to exhaustion, he surrenders his gun, wrings the hands of his comrades in silence, and lifting his tear-stained and pallid face for the last time to the graves that dot the old Virginia hills, pulls his gray cap over his brow and begins the slow and painful journey. What does he find—let me ask you, who went to your homes eager to find in the welcome you had justly earned, full payment for four years' sacrifice—what does he find when, having followed the battle-stained cross against overwhelming odds, dreading death not half so much as surrender, he reaches the home he left so prosperous and beautiful? He finds his house in ruins, his farm devastated, his slaves free, his stock killed, his barns empty, his trade destroyed, his money worthless; his social system, feudal in its magnificence, swept away; his people without law or legal status, his comrades slain, and the burdens of others heavy on his shoulders. Crushed by defeat, his very traditions are gone; without money, credit, employment, material or training; and, besides all this, confronted with the gravest problem that ever met human intelligence—the establishing of a status for the vast body of his liberated slaves.

What does he do—this hero in gray with a heart of gold? Does he sit down in sullenness and despair? Not for a day. Surely God, who had stripped him of his prosperity, inspired him in his adversity. As ruin was never before so overwhelming, never was restoration swifter. The soldier stepped from the trenches into the furrow; horses that had charged Federal guns march before the plow, and fields that ran red with human blood in April were green with the harvest in June; women reared in luxury cut up their dresses and made breeches for their husbands, and, with a patience and heroism that fit women always as a garment, gave their hands to work. There was little bitterness in all this. Cheerfulness and frankness prevailed. "Bill Arp" struck the keynote when he said: "Well, I killed as many of them as they did of me, and now I am going to work." [Laughter and applause.] Or the soldier returning home after defeat and roasting some corn on the roadside, who made the remark to his comrades: "You may leave the South if you want to, but I am going to Sandersville, kiss my wife and raise a crop, and if the Yankees fool with me any more I will whip 'em again." [Renewed applause.] I want to say to General Sherman—who is considered an able man in our hearts, though some people think he is a kind of careless man about fire—that from the ashes he left us in 1864 we have raised a brave and beautiful city; that somehow or other we have caught the sunshine in the bricks and mortar of our homes, and have builded therein not one ignoble prejudice or memory.===============================================================Henry W. Grady, The New South

Major General Bryan Grimes (1828-1880)

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Core Creek Militia

==============================My sixth great grandfather, his wife, and five of his six children were killed in battle with the Tuscarora Indians at Core Creek, NC.

The Seven Blackbirds

==============================My third great grandfather was an Ensign in the Revolutionary War, and saved his unit's flag after being wounded at the Battle of Brandywine. He was also at Kingston (Kinston), Wilmington, Charleston, Two Sisters and Augusta. He was at the defeat at Brier Creek and also Bee Creek.

Requiem Aeternam -
Eternal Rest Grant unto Them
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My second great grandfather was killed in action on May 3, 1863 at the Battle of Chancellorsville.
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My great grandfather and great uncle knew all the men in the "Civil War Requiem" video as they were part of the 53rd NC which was the sole unit defending Fort Mahone. (Fort Mahone was named "Fort Damnation" by the Yankees) *Handpicked men of the 53rd (My great grandfather was one of these) made the final, night assault at Petersburg in an attempt to break Grant's line. This was against Fort Stedman which was a few miles to the slight northeast. They initially succeeded, but reinforcements drove them back. This video is made from photographs which were taken the day after the 53rd evacuated the lines the night before to begin the retreat to Appomattox. I have many more pictures taken by the same photographer, one of these shows a 14 year old boy and the other is the famous picture of the blond, handsome soldier with his musket.
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*General Gordon promised the men a gold medal and 30 days leave if they accomplished their task and many years after the War my great grandfather wrote General Gordon, who was then governor of Georgia about this incident. They exchanged several letters which I have framed. See first link below.
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*The Attack On Fort Stedman
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"His Colored Friends"
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Lee's Surrender
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My Black NC Kinfolks
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Punished For Being Caught!

Great Grandfather Koonce

He was a drummer boy in the WBTS, survived the War only to die a few years later. He was caught in an ice storm on his way home, but instead of seeking shelter, continued on his horse until the end. His clothes had to be cut off and he died a few days later.

Thank you

I would just like you to know how so very glad I am that I found your blog. I have learned more history from you and the many links that you post than I have from reading all my history books. I can never thank you enough for the education you are freely giving me. It is priceless. And eye opening.

Many times I will not comment, but that does not mean I am not reading and learning.

You sir, are an educator. Thank you.

PhyllisWantage, NJ

Good morning Mr. Townsend,

Just to let you know I have finally finished that massive tome on General Lee. I never knew 1/10th of what a great man he was. No wonder the South is so proud of him! So sad that we have few men of his caliber today. We need them desperately. I have learned more history through you and your blog than I thought I could ever learn. I am very grateful to you. Thank you so much for taking time to answer my e-mail. And thank you for your blog and for opening my eyes.

PhyllisWantage, NJ

".......So good to hear from you! And also so pleased you are converting more of us Yankees! You have no idea how many people you have taught. And how many are so grateful to you for showing us the truth."

Your faithful friend,

Phylis

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I have also learned from Brock Townsend and two nurses lately, that appreciation expressed by someone for whom you have great respect overwhelms the lack of appreciation by some from whom you expect it. I believe that we cannot really know which small bit of help makes the life-saving difference. ﻿

I have learned more history from you than all the years I was supposed to be in school (and not out hunting or fishing).

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I really must say, I like thousands of others have said, your blog is the best out there and with all of your history and experience, you should run for *president. I look forward to reading your blog every day and every day I learn from you. Thank you for the time you put into this effort .

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